Can Joe Fauria Join Marcedes Lewis As The Next Great Bruin Tight End?

gbruin alerted us about Johnathan Franklin being on the prestigious Maxwell award watch list. Joe Fauria is the next Bruin up on getting on one of these cool lists. The Bruin senior TE is on the "Mackey Award watch list":

Senior tight end Joseph Fauria has been named to the John Mackey Award watch list, which is the award given annually to the nation's top tight end.

Last season, Fauria was added to the watch list during midseason. This is the second watch list that Fauria has been named to prior to the 2012 season, as he was named to the College Football Performance Awards list on Monday.

During the 2011 season, Fauria led the team with six scoring receptions, the most by a Bruin since Marcedes Lewis had 10 in 2005. Fauria was second on the team with 39 catches and 481 receiving yards and was named the Most Improved Offensive Player on the team (Captain Don Brown Memorial Award).

Hopefully Fauria will join Marcedes Lewis as the next great Bruin TE to win the award.

The year Marcedes won the award was also the last time Bruins posted a double digit winning season. Although, for reasons discussed exhaustively previously on BN that "10 win" season was ... uh .. just a little tainted given how Bruins were scrambling for comebacks against bad to mediocre teams and then got utterly humiliated by Arizona and Southern Cal.

Anyway, besides Fauria and Franklin, punter Jeff Locke is the other Bruin to get on a pre-season watch list. For the sake of UCLA though we hope Locke gets minimal chances to show off his skills this upcoming season.

GO BRUINS.